One report for
you from GenCon UK 2008; thanks to Andy Holt for permission to republish.

GenCon
UK 2008 report by Andy Holt, originally posted to the Shadowfist-UK Forum
on Yahoogroups in two parts. Anyone can read the original in the archives here
and here.

GenCon
UK 2008 report by Andy Holt

Originally
posted to the Shadowfist-UK Forum on Yahoogroups on 31 Aug 2008 by Andy Holt.
I emailed Andy for permission but he didn't respond. He's given permission in
the past so I'm assuming this is ok too..

It is now 7am on
the last day of UK Gencon, in less than 3 hours time the "Comrades in Arms"
tournament starts ...

We've had quite
a representative turnout of the UK Shadowfist players and met and talked-with
quite a few non-current players (of which more later).

On the Friday evening
Andrew Davidson was the tournament organiser for the draft - he'll provide the
detailed report . Suffice it , for now to say that the Welsh contingent's dominance
of the Con was firmly established.

After the inital
mess-up by the organisers in forgetting to put our events in the schedule and
in not having preallocated a room for us, they responded very well and quickly
and provided a room which was one of the few air-conditioned ones on campus
... a definite bonus.

Much fiendly play
continued throughout.

I was a little
disappointed by the turnout for the main Final Brawl ... only 13. John Davis,
who played well in the draft, considered that his infrequent opportunities for
play and limited experience of recent cards had left him uncompetitive for constructed
tournaments and so only observed (and gave some assistance in the "housekeeping"
of the tournament). I chose to try and bing a bit of colour to the procedings
by wearing robes appropriate to a senior member of the Lotus (unfortunately
I forgot to put on the "Fu Manchu" moustache and beard that I had
brought and hadn't been able to find where I had put the headgear) - the "flying
sleeves" also caused occasional problems on the table.

First Round:

Tony Adams beat
Alex Laney, Andrew Davidson, and Sam ("harlequingames") - A victory
for the English
Andy Holt beat Arthur Howlin and Mark Wheelhouse - well, that was always going
to be a London victory :-)
Ron Wheelhouse beat David Martin and Clint - Hey, the Welsh lose again
Ed beat Ivan Hartley and Anthony Sweeney (the sole representative of the Manchester
group)
Oh, well, the Welsh have to win something

Second round:

Tony Adams beat
Ivan and Arthur - Keep up the good work, Tony
Ed beat Andrew and David - A Welsh victory
Clint beat Alex and Andy - The Welsh Stirke back (against Finchley)
Sam beat Ron, Anthony, and Mark - Hmm, all the Welsh won this round.

At this point Alex,
Andrew, Anthony, Arthur, David, Ivan, and Mark had all been "double-eliminated"
and played in a couple of "consolation games" (the results of which
I have failed to record)
Tony and Ed with double wins each were guaranteed final places and decided to
rest by playing Race for the Galaxy while the semi-final took place.
In the Semi-final Clint prevailed over Sam, Ron, and myself

So the final was
between
Ed (for Wales)
Clint (for Wales)
Tony (for England)

and this was won
by Ed.
Photos to follow
The finalists will all be posting their decklists this week.

The key cards were
Buddhist Monk (all three finalists used them, with Rig Dis)
Thunderbirds (typically weighing-in at 10-12 fighting)
Cheap denial
Wind on the Mountain

(part 2 report)

Now home and starting
to recover.

Turnout for the
Comrades in Arms was very poor.
The good news for the rest of us was that the Welsh decided that it was too
hard to make a cheesy deck for CiA.
The bad news was that we only had six players.

For amusement value
to make the first round seating arrangements I had the two non-Finchley players
alternately choose which player would be on the same table as them. Unlike for
football, being chosen first was perhaps not a vote of confidence :-)

in my game I did
not get a FSS (or a Dirk Wisely's Gambit) for the first 8 turns and so it is
not surprising I lost - the game was won by Andrew.
Meanwhile Tony made short work of Alex & Arthur.

John Davis acted
as judge in the "most interesting designator" spot prize. I was not
eligible and he decided that Ivan's "transformed" showed the greatest
initiative (I would agree - it's quite a tough choice to build).

Second round both
games timed-out after a very generous time limit.

Andrew and I were
equally placed above Alex
Ivan and Tony were equally placed above Anthony and Arthur.

I conceded to Andrew
giving a 3-player final of Ivan, Tony, and Andrew which was won by Tony.
The rest of us played a consolation game - which was eventually abandoned as
a draw when I had to leave.